


In So Many Words

by alocalband



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Demisexual Dex, Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Nursey POV, Oblivious Nursey, Post-Dibs Flip, Sharing a Room, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alocalband/pseuds/alocalband
Summary: Derek writes a short story. That's his first mistake.His second is getting it published.





	In So Many Words

Derek knows he fucked up. He does. He is very well aware that this particular brand of impending doom he’s facing down right now is entirely of his own making. 

But he still can’t quite bring himself to regret any of his actions leading up to it. 

Yes, he wrote the story knowing exactly what it was. He submitted it to the literary journal. He happily accepted the praise from the editorial staff that approved it. And he went out and bought three more copies on top of the free one they gave him once it was published. 

He’s _proud_ of himself is the thing. Which is kind of secretly rare for him. 

So, you know, fuck it. _He did this_. He wrote something that other people wanted to read, and it wasn’t even just a few lines of poetry with a decent beat to it, it was a whole damn story. He _can’t_ regret that. 

Even if he knew full well the entire time, from start to fucking finish, that it was eventually going to bite him in the ass. 

“Oh honey,” Bitty sighs pityingly as he finishes reading it at the Haus kitchen table. 

Derek stuffs the last bite of his slice of pie into his mouth and braces himself. 

“It’s really very good,” Bitty tells him. “But...” 

Derek nods. “But,” he agrees. 

“Maybe he won’t read it.” 

“Even if he doesn’t... everyone else will.” Derek imagines what the group chat is going to look like once they do and barely suppresses a shudder. 

He watches Bitty come to the same conclusion and pull a _yikes_ face, then quickly shake it off. “Well, they’re proud of you, of course they’ll read it. It really is good, Nursey. Not that I’m an expert, but even I can see that you’ve got talent.” 

“I don’t think Dex is going to care how good it is when Rans and Holster start chirping him for the torrid, clandestine affair he’s supposedly having with me.” 

Bitty cringes a little. “Yeah, probably not.” 

What Dex will _probably_ do is punch Derek in the face. And then maybe move out. Which, after everything they’ve suffered through since moving into Lardo’s room together last semester, makes Derek feel a unique kind of shitty. 

Was he rooting for Dex to move out in the beginning? Hell yes. But several months of blood, sweat, and tears later, he feels like they’ve both really earned this tentative understanding between them that they’ve been slowly building, sarcastic and improbable brick by sarcastic and improbable brick. 

And now Derek’s gone and ruined it. 

“Maybe he won’t, like, ‘get’ it?” he tries. “I mean, neither of the characters even has red hair. They’re obviously not _us_.” 

Bitty shoots him his patented _I love you dearly but you are a massive idiot_ look, of which Derek’s been on the receiving end of too many times now to count. “Of course neither of them are _you_ , but the circumstances of their living situation are rather, uh, _specific_? Not to mention the tone of the affair, and the things Tom says when he finally confesses his love...” Bitty trails off, and then quirks an eyebrow at Derek. “You’re a skillful writer, Nursey, but that speech at the end felt a little... personal.” 

Derek winces and looks down at his empty plate, idly playing with his fork just so his hands have something to do that isn’t pulling at his own hair like a nervous wreck. “It’s not like that, Bits. And just because I’ve imagined a scenario in which it is, doesn’t mean... Whatever. It’s just a story. It has nothing to do with reality. Other than the fact that Dex is going to _kill me_ _in reality_ when he finds out about it.” 

“Oh honey,” Bitty just sighs again, shaking his head, and gets up to serve Derek another slice of pie. 

As it turns out, the group chat is suspiciously devoid of taunting and innuendo once the lit journal starts to get circulated among them all. There are a lot of _congrats, man!_ often surrounded by multiple expletives, and there are a handful of variations on Chowder’s emoji-laden _that was so good you are so super talented omg!!!_ But nothing that could even be vaguely misconstrued as a chirp. And absolutely zero mention of how Dex might at all be tied to what Derek wrote. 

Dex himself only offers him a verbal, “congratulations, by the way,” without looking up from his homework at the shared desk in their bedroom. 

“Thanks. You, uh, you read it yet?” Derek asks, the epitome of cool, calm, and _I totally don’t give a shit_ as he starts to change for bed. 

“Chris told me not to.” Dex shrugs a shoulder, his fingers not even pausing as he types. 

Derek freezes, but keeps his tone of voice casual. “Oh? He say why?” 

“He thinks I’ll end up saying something mean and bruising your delicate ego.” 

God freaking bless Chris Chow. Derek scoffs with faux confidence. “Well that’s nice of him and all, but C’s much appreciated concern presumes that I actually care what you think.” 

“It also presumes that I have any interest in reading your writing in the first place.” 

Derek swallows and finishes pulling on his t-shirt. He should be feeling relieved right now. He’s gotten away with this, somehow, and he should definitely be feeling... Well. Not this. Not oddly restless and low-key disappointed. What the hell? 

He shakes it off and throws himself into the bottom bunk with a book and a clunky pair of old headphones. “Bro, don’t front. You’re probably dying to get a look at the product of what goes on inside this beautiful brain.” 

Dex snorts, and glances sideways at Derek just long enough to shoot him what, up until very recently, would have been a scathing glare, but these days is now tempered with a bit of reluctant amusement. It’s subtle, but it’s there. In the slight quirk of his lips, and the way his eyebrows aren’t quite as severe as Derek very well knows they can be. 

“I’ve been subjected to enough of what goes on in that head of yours to last me a lifetime, Nurse. I’m not gonna voluntarily expose myself to anymore of it.” 

Dex goes back to his homework, and Derek settles in with his music and his reading, and that’s the end of it. Crisis averted. Bullet dodged. 

Even if it doesn’t sit quite right with him. 

But Derek refuses to look this gift horse in the mouth, no matter how strangely dissatisfied he feels. He’d be a damn idiot to do otherwise. 

***

Derek Nurse is an idiot. 

He catches Chowder alone a week later, about to head out the door. It’s rare to ever actually catch him without Bitty, Farmer or Dex at his side, so Derek pounces. “Yo, C, got a sec?” 

“Sure! I’m meeting Cait for dinner, you wanna join?” 

“Nah, I’m good. But, uh, I’ll walk with you?” 

“Swawesome!” 

The evening air is cool, even this late into March, and has driven most of their fellow pedestrians into tight clusters, huddled against a biting breeze. All the same, Derek feels suddenly exposed and on display as he tries not to let his voice waver. “So I wanted to ask you something. About my story.” 

“Oh, it was amazing, Nursey! Seriously, you’re gonna have whole novels published one day.” 

Derek ducks his head a little and resists the urge to grab the back of his neck bashfully. “I don’t know about that, C. It might just be a one-off.” 

“No way. You’re super, like, literate? I bet you win all the book writing awards and make best seller lists and everything.” 

Derek laughs and lets himself bask in the praise for a moment. He doesn’t have Chowder’s level of faith in his abilities, but when standing in the face of that faith it’s hard not to think that _maybe one day.._. 

He shakes his head and squares his shoulders. “Okay, but if the story was so good... Just. Why did you tell Dex not to read it?” 

Chowder blinks in surprise at the question, expression blank. And then he raises a very judgmental eyebrow at Derek and speaks his next words slowly, like he thinks Derek is being purposefully obtuse. “Why do you _think_ I told him not to?” 

Derek shoves his hands into his pockets and looks away. “The story isn’t actually about me and him, you know.” 

“Of course it’s not. But it _is_ about you.” 

His gaze snaps sharply back to Chowder, and his throat goes bone dry in an instant. “No, it’s not. It’s about two guys named Kasper and Tom who I _made up_.” 

“ _Nursey_ ,” Chowder cocks his head to one side and gives Derek a look that radiates pity, and _oh shit does Chowder actually think_ \-- 

“Oh my god, is that why none of the guys have chirped me for this? Because they _feel sorry for me?_ ” 

The pity is gone in a flash. “What? No! Of course not! They’re just trying to be good friends! And, you know, be respectful of your feelings and stuff. And also Bitty threatened everyone while waving a rolling pin around and it was really terrifying.” 

Derek cannot believe this. He was worried the boys would give him shit for what he wrote, and worried that Dex would give him hell for it, but he didn’t think they’d genuinely believe that Derek was... “I am not pining away for _Poindexter_ , Chris,” he says seriously. “You guys are reading into this way too much.” 

Chowder pauses as the dining hall comes into view and turns to face Derek, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Maybe it was just something you needed to get out of your system, and now that you wrote it all down you can move on? Anyway, the story was really good, and we’re all really proud of you.” 

All things considered, his talk with Chowder leaves Derek feeling even more on edge than before. 

It’s not that he’s completely oblivious to his own psychological and emotional hang-ups. Derek Nurse is well aware of his various coping mechanisms for managing life. So he understands that how he feels about Dex is... complicated. 

Derek likes winding the guy up--even now that the two of them are a sort of, kind of, almost friends--in a way that he has no desire to do with literally anyone else he’s ever met. And sometimes it doesn’t feel like he’s doing it just to laugh over the ensuing meltdown, but because he keeps hoping he’ll eventually provoke an entirely new set of responses and he’s desperate to find out what they might be. 

He wrote that short story trying to imagine what would happen if those new set of responses were something he knows is completely impossible and, frankly, ridiculous. And it just sort of spiraled from there into what became a tale of hard won love amidst transitioning into an adulthood that Derek is honestly still miles away from achieving himself. 

It was a _what if_. Not an _I wish._

So, obviously, the solution here is to write another one. 

***

Dex enters their room just as Derek is slowly coming up for air after a three-day writing binge. Their shared desk is a mess of crumpled notebook paper and empty paper coffee cups, the surface barely visible beneath it all, which Derek knows drives Dex up the wall. 

Except that Dex hasn’t said anything about it yet. A fact that, in his current, somewhat reality-adjacent headspace, Derek’s brain hones in on and can’t quite seem to let go of. 

“You’ve been doing your homework at the library,” he realizes out loud. 

Dex barely glances at him as he sorts through the books in his backpack. “And in Chowder’s room,” he says, like it doesn’t mean anything. 

Derek looks down at the mess that surrounds him, fully understanding for the first time that the only reason that mess could exist at all after three whole days is if Dex never tried to work in the same space for that entire time. 

He doesn’t know what to think for a very long moment. 

“... _Why?_ ” he finally asks, incredulous. 

Dex huffs and rolls his eyes as he finally faces Derek head on. “If fall semester taught me anything it was to pick my battles. Sometimes you need to do your weirdo writer thing, and getting on your case about it doesn’t actually stop you from doing it, it just makes us both miserable.” 

Derek blinks and comes back to himself fully. To the unwashed clothes he’s wearing, the dire need to shave, the fact that he hasn’t eaten anything of real substance in far too long. “That is so obnoxiously mature of you, I think I hate you a little bit.” 

“A little bit _more_ , you mean.” 

“Right.” 

“If you’re finally back to being human again, though, you’ve got until tomorrow morning to clean that shit up or I start hiding your textbooks,” Dex says, and then leaves for Chowder’s room with an armful of homework as Derek flips him off. 

Derek takes a long shower while listening to the cadence of Dex and Chowder’s voices conversing, not loud enough through the wall between them or over the white noise of the water spray for him to decipher the words, but comforting in its familiarity. 

When he’s done, he cleans up the mess of the last three days, and then sits stiffly on the edge of the bottom bunk to read over the result of his efforts. 

This new story is nothing like the first. And yet, despairingly, far too similar in all the ways Derek tried to make it different. 

Kasper and Tom have been replaced by Amy and Antigone. It’s an entirely different story, with entirely different characters, even if they have the exact same dynamic between them. The problem is that it ends in pretty much the same way as the first story. Which was definitely not Derek’s intention. 

He didn’t even really think about it while writing it out, he just let his words follow the natural progression of things, and somehow ended up with a quiet confession of romantic feelings while sitting in a stalled car in the rain. 

Shit. 

This doesn’t necessarily have to _mean_ anything, though. And the story itself is actually decent, or will be after an editing pass or two... 

Listen, he knows he’s about to make this situation worse even as he does it. He’s not completely oblivious. But he _is_ very good at compartmentalizing, and at rationalizing bad decisions all the way up until the consequences hit. 

Derek submits the story. 

He understands that he’s tempting fate. But it’s a different publication, and if he actually gets accepted, no matter how many copies he buys himself, the guys on the team never have to know about it. 

Well. He might tell Chowder. 

And maybe Bitty. 

Whatever. It’s a pipe dream at best, so he doesn’t bother worrying about it. Derek is good with words, even better with grammar and syntax, but he doesn’t consider himself the kind of writer that Chowder thinks he is. The acceptance of that first story was just... beginners luck. A fluke. An anomaly.

A rare moment of validation that Derek has trained himself over the years not to let trick him into believing he’s worth a damn.

***

He gets accepted. 

“You beautiful motherfucker, you fucking did _what_?” Shitty’s exuberance never fails to make Derek smile, even when only over video chat. “Congratu-fucking-lations, bro!” 

Derek didn’t mean to tell him. The words just kind of slipped out mid-conversation.

But now that it _is_ out there, he might as well go for broke and get a second opinion on what might be going on in his own head that would make him write it. 

“It’s... got a similar tone as the first one,” he says carefully. 

Shitty stops gesticulating abruptly, and stares at him for a long moment. “You didn’t.” 

“Completely different characters. Different setting. Different--“ 

“But you based it on you and Dex.” 

“...In a manner of speaking.” 

“And the characters end up boning.” 

“Not in so many words.” 

“What the fuck, Derek.” 

“It’s not...” Derek runs a frustrated hand over his features and takes a deep breath. “Look. It’s not how it sounds. I’m not writing about _us_ , not really, I’m just taking inspiration from our, you know, our dynamic. And then exploring how it would play out if we were _completely different people_.” 

Shitty nods his head and purses his lips, considering. “So you’re basically just imagining what would happen if you guys were actually nice to each other.” 

“I am plenty nice,” Derek defends. Shitty shoots him a look. “Sometimes.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Shitty snorts unattractively. “I love you, Nurse, but the day I catch you doing something _nice_ for William Jacob Poindexter, without any ulterior motives behind it, is the day I believe these stories of yours might actually be leading up to something in reality.” 

“They aren’t _leading to anything_. And fuck off, it’s not like Poindexter ever goes out of his way to be nice for my benefit either.” 

Except that’s not entirely true, is it? Maybe “nice” is the wrong word for Dex giving him his space to write, but... it’s not nothing. 

Shitty shrugs. “It’s a stalemate that works for you guys, I get it. I’m not expecting either of you to break it any time soon. Or ever. The fact that you’ve found a happy medium between killing each other and kinda sorta tolerating each other that allows you to live together unscathed still fucking boggles my fucking mind.” 

It kind of boggles Derek’s mind as well. 

“Just, don’t tell the rest of the guys about this, alright?” 

“Sure thing, bro. And hey, listen, if you say the stories don’t mean anything about you and Dex, then they don’t mean anything. I believe you, alright? Like I said, I’ll start reading into shit when you start treating our dear William like you actually care about him. Which we both know isn’t gonna happen.” 

Shitty’s not wrong. But he’s not entirely right either. A common state of being for Shitty, to be honest. 

Derek does care. Of course he does. Dex is his teammate and, yes, his friend. They’ve reached that point. But Derek still doesn’t like putting himself out there with Dex like he would for any of his other friends. 

To be fair, Derek doesn’t like putting himself out there for _anyone_ all that often.

It’s about self-preservation, alright? Derek’s affection, his love, his _caring,_ it can’t ever be rejected if he’s careful not to ever look like he’s offering it in the first place. 

But he’s doubly careful with Dex. Always has been. Because Dex is very, very good at rejecting even the things that Derek hasn’t yet offered. 

Dex will reject words before they’ve even left Derek’s mouth, and physical displays of solidarity (read: fistbumps) before Derek’s even moved to initiate them. Dex rejected Derek in his entirety the moment they met, and Derek’s been trying to convince himself that this doesn’t bother him ever since. 

That gets harder whenever sarcastic or mocking displays of friendship are occasionally accepted as if they were sincere. A hand ruffling Dex’s hair as they pose for an embarrassing photo at Haus-giving with a pie. A hand on Dex’s helmet as they set off together onto the ice. These touches are all meant to be facetious, and are only accepted because of that, and yet are remembered now in vivid color for the fact that Dex responded as if they were more serious and meaningful and _welcome_ than Derek knows they were. 

So, yeah, Derek _cares._ As much as he would with any of his other friends. He just doesn’t let himself do anything that would outwardly indicate that caring. 

And he has no desire to start. _He’d be an idiot to start_. The one time he slipped up and accidentally tried to offer anything to Dex was after their loss at the end of the season their Freshman year. Emotions were high as they entered the locker room, Jack had already disappeared, and Dex was practically vibrating beside Derek. When Derek reached a hand out for him, not even knowing what he meant to do with it, just that he wanted to be there for the guy, Dex shoved him away roughly and stomped right back out of the locker room like he couldn’t get away fast enough. 

So yeah, sure, Shitty is right in a way. The day Derek does something _nice_ for Dex, the day he forgets to be careful and offers Dex an opportunity to reject him even more, is the day Derek will admit that there’s actually something to worry about in regards to these stories meaning something more than he tells himself they do. 

All the same, Derek goes to class that day distracted, as much by his conversation with Shitty as the fact that he’s itching to tell someone else about his newest publication accomplishment but is starting to suspect that it’s a bad idea.

And he’s still thinking about it later while lying across his bed trying to study for midterms. He’s having trouble focusing, but it takes him a moment to realize that it’s not because Shitty’s words are still rattling around in his brain at full volume, but because Dex is staring at him.

Dex’s brows are furrowed and his eyes are narrowed with a singular, calculating focus, like Derek is a math problem he’s trying to solve.

“What?” Derek sits up and promptly hits his head on the beams of the top bunk. He winces and lies back down. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You got published again,” Dex says plainly, not accusing, but Derek reacts as if accused anyway. 

“What? How did you--” 

“You’re doing your whole,” Dex waves a hand vaguely at him, “you know, your thing.” 

“My thing?” 

“Where you buy a bunch of the same short story compilation and stare at them when you think I’m not looking.” 

“I do not do that.” 

“You also start pretending nothing phases you even more than usual.” 

Derek forces a little more _couldn’t give a shit_ into the nature of his sprawl and relaxes his shoulders. “I’m not pretending.” 

Dex snorts. “You are totally pretending.”

“Okay, fine. You caught me. I got published again. What do you care?” 

“I don’t.” 

“Then what’s with the face?” 

Dex tilts his head slightly to one side and drums his fingers against his thigh. “I just can’t figure out why you didn’t tell anyone about it this time. Is it embarrassing? Did you write the next _Twilight_?” 

“I didn’t exactly go around bragging about it before either.” 

Dex rolls his eyes. “Yeah, but you made sure they all found out. You’re not as smooth as you like to think you are.” 

“I’m plenty smooth. Ask anyone.” 

“Anyone in your fan club, you mean.” 

Derek rolls over and off the bed, only barely managing to catch himself in the landing and stand up without damaging anything. Dex stifles a laugh. “Just because you’re the one person impervious to my many charms, Poindexter, doesn’t mean you’ve got an accurate read on me.” 

“But I’m not wrong about the story, am I? You’re embarrassed about it.” 

“I’m not _embarrassed_. It’s just not a big deal.” Derek crosses his arms over his chest and forces a shrug. “The congrats were warranted the first time, but sophomore efforts are whatever.” 

“So if I told Ford about it, you wouldn’t do your internal freakout thing.” 

Derek fights with every molecule of his being not to let the panic show in his posture.

But something must shine through in his eyes because Dex smirks. “Kind of like exactly what you’re doing right now.” 

“Oh shut up.” 

The smirk is still firmly in place as Dex turns back around to his homework. Derek hesitates for a minute, trying to figure out if he needs to start the damage control now and run to Bitty for backup or not. 

But then Dex is speaking again, though he doesn’t turn to look at Derek when he does. “I’m not really gonna tell Ford. Don’t worry.” 

Derek blinks, surprised and wary. “You’re not?” 

He watches Dex’s shoulders shrug and then even out into their usual tight line of broad muscle in thin flannel. “As funny as it is whenever you lose your supposed _chill_ , I don’t actually want to be the asshole that intentionally gives you a panic attack.” 

Derek has to look away at that, unable to even meet the back of Dex’s head with his gaze. Last semester was a lesson for the both of them on the other’s hard limits when it comes to their psychological well-being. Dex put a fist through a wall and had to get stitches at one point. Derek nearly lost consciousness in the shared bathroom during a panic attack at another.

They don’t talk about either incident. But they both adjusted their behaviors to make sure it never happened again. 

“As far as internal freakouts go, I think this one would only rate about a four. So if you’re looking for blackmail material, man, you’re good.” 

There’s a long moment where Dex’s hands remain frozen over his keyboard, but he doesn’t move to respond.

“...Still,” he eventually says, so soft Derek barely hears it. 

That “still” haunts Derek for the next few days, though he can’t put his finger on why. 

***

Derek attempts to cleanse his palette in the worst way possible, because Derek is very good at making bad decisions when it comes to his own life.

He tells his parents about the second story.

They offered their lukewarm congrats the last go around, and are appropriately proud of his efforts this time too, but he knows they won’t bother to read it. And his father’s thinly veiled hints that Derek should try to do something “more... _substantial_ ” with his writing have Derek hiding in bed for the rest of the day and on into the next one. 

He only reemerges the next morning because Dex literally drags him out from beneath the covers with a solid grip on his arms, and then shoves and nags him inch by inch down the stairs and into Bitty’s kitchen for breakfast. 

It’s well established by now that Dex literally can’t _stand_ to see Derek not take care of himself. As if Derek getting the flu or letting a bad mood keep him from being fully functional for longer than twenty-four hours legitimately _offends_ Dex. It’s as annoying as it is hilarious. Possibly also endearing, but the jury’s still out.

“You’re a mess, Nurse,” Dex sighs as they eat, sounding half angry and half something Derek doesn’t have it in hims to investigate.

Derek continues shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth with one hand and flips Dex off with the other, before reaching for his tragically now empty coffee and frowning at it like he doesn’t understand how this has happened.

Dex sighs again and pushes his own still steaming cup of coffee across the table towards his defense partner.

It’s easy, on mornings like this, to forget how hard they worked to get here.

Even easier to forget that none of it means anything.

Dex only accepts Derek’s affections when Derek makes a show of turning them into a joke. Derek only accepts Dex’s affections when he knows they’re just a product of Dex’s frustration with him.

It’s a delicate balance that they both pretend won’t completely shatter if breathed on too roughly.

***

Between his parents and his own, not uncommon, dwindling sense of accomplishment, eventually Derek gives in and shows the new publication to Chowder, hoping to counteract the sinking feeling that’s started to manifest whenever he thinks of it. 

Chowder beams at him at the news, tackles him in an enthusiastic hug while showering him with praise, and promises to read it the moment he finishes his homework. 

It’s exactly the response Derek has desperately needed from someone outside his own head, even though he is loathe to admit that out loud.

Chowder returns from his bedroom a couple hours later with a look on his face similar to the one he wore when Derek tripped and spilled an entire bowl of cereal all over Dex their Freshman year and then proceeded to slip in the milk while apologizing and fall into the guy’s lap. 

Derek has never felt so judged by a pair of eyebrows before. 

“It’s not what you think,” he says.

Chowder’s eyebrows remain unconvinced. 

“I’m not doing it on purpose,” he tries. 

“That... might actually be worse.” Chowder’s frown turns a little sad. 

“I just mean that I’m not, like, doing it to mess with Dex. Or to make fun of him. And I’m definitely not doing it to satisfy some fantasy about us. It isn’t like that, C.” 

Chowder sighs, steps forward, and pulls Derek into a brief hug. “It’s a really good story, Nursey,” he says as he releases him. “Maybe you just... didn’t get it all out of your system the first time?” 

“What exactly do you think is in my system, bro?” 

Chowder chews his bottom lip and stuffs his hands into his Sharks’ hoodie’s pockets. He seems to debate with himself what words to choose next for longer than he usually would. Finally: “I know you hold back. With everybody. And that’s cool. It’s okay, I promise. But you hold back with Dex more. So maybe you just, like, needed to find an outlet for that? Because if you didn’t, you’d start not being able to hold back at all.” 

This does very little to cheer Derek up about the whole mess, but that isn’t exactly Chowder’s fault. Derek’s the one who got himself here, and who refuses to examine too closely the how’s and why’s.

“But you liked the story?” he asks, a little desperately and with a sheepishly hopeful look.

Chowder hugs him again, because Chowder is awesome like that. “I _loved_ it. You’re a brilliant writer, Nursey.”

Which helps a little. But Derek still resists writing literally anything that isn’t school assignment related for a whole fucking week after that, paranoid that Chowder’s and Shitty’s words will start to become true. Or that he’ll be forced to seriously consider the implications of them.

He and Dex are good. So what if Derek holds back with him more than anyone else? As long as Dex is Dex and Derek is Derek that’s not ever going to change, and writing about fictional situations in which it does change doesn’t mean a damn thing.

***

He should’ve known it wouldn’t happen all at once. Wouldn’t be some giant, undeniable turning point that he could see coming a mile away and so then successfully avoid.

No, it sneaks up on him, slow and steady and too subtle for him to catch until it’s right on top of him.

Dex comes home in a terrible mood one evening, the kind of mood that isn’t just the result of the permanent stick up his ass. Derek has learned to tell the difference, and he knows now that if he doesn’t want the two of them to come to actual blows, he should stay out of Dex’s hair for a little while. 

So he heads out of the Haus without a word, and meanders around Lake Quad for about an hour. He calls his sister and leaves her a rambling voicemail about the LAX douches that he knows will make her laugh. He hits up the library circulation desk, just to see if the book he’s waiting on has magically been returned early. And then he stops by Annie’s on the long route back to the Haus. 

Before common sense can catch up to what he’s doing, he’s already ordered two drinks instead of just one. And it takes him the several minutes until he’s holding both of them in his hands on the way out the door to realize what he’s done. 

God damn it. 

Back at the Haus, Derek doesn’t even make it to the staircase before being spotted. 

“Don’t start with me, Bits,” he mutters darkly. 

Bitty’s eyebrows have shot up to his hairline, his assessing gaze trained on the duo of coffee cups. “I didn’t say a word.” 

“Yeah, but you were thinking plenty of them.” 

“Nothing but good ones, sweetheart, I swear.” 

But Derek doesn’t want anyone’s good thoughts about this. Derek wants to go back in time to an hour ago when he could still pretend he wasn’t idiotically setting himself up to be taken down.

He doesn’t _do_ this, okay? He is very careful not to ever do this. He doesn’t offer pieces of himself up like this, especially not to people he knows will stomp all over the offer without a moment’s hesitation. 

Derek doesn’t say anything when he gets back to their room. Just sets the second drink down on the desk next to Dex’s laptop and turns right back around to set his own drink on the railing of his bed while he rummages around in their closet for something to wear to sleep. 

He’s got his sweater off and a t-shirt in his hands when he turns back around to find Dex staring at Derek like Derek just grew a second head. 

“ _What?_ ” he scowls, and he knows how defensive he sounds is giving away more than he wants to, but it’s too late now to feign a convincing nonchalance. 

Dex opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it and frowns, eyebrows drawing together in a puzzled expression. “I was going to ask if you spit in this, but you’d look a lot more smug right now if you did.” 

Derek trains his gaze down on the t-shirt he’s still holding, bunching the fabric up between his fingers and running his thumbs over the weave in an effort to keep himself anchored. “I didn’t spit in it.” 

“So you... You’re being _nice_ ,” Dex says, not making it a question but still imbuing it with as much incredulity as Derek has ever heard. 

“It happens.”

“Not to me.” 

“Well... it should. Sometimes. It’s not a big deal, Poindexter, you just looked like you needed a mood lifter. Hot chocolate is a mood lifter.” 

Dex looks down at the cup, expression turning even more bewildered. “It’s hot chocolate?” 

“Coffee keeps you up all night if you drink it this late, and don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you hoard Bitty’s brownies when he makes them. You’re a secret chocolate fiend.” Derek swallows. His stomach is a knot of nerves as he waits for Dex to throw this all back in his face, to throw the drink into the trash without drinking it, to reject the gesture out of hand _because that’s what Dex does_. 

But Dex doesn’t do any of those things. He doesn’t do _much_ really, other than stare for a very long moment, and then heave a heavy sigh. “My brother called.” 

“Oh. Um, okay?” 

Dex’s jaw clenches, and he makes quick, tight fists with both hands before forcibly spreading his fingers wide and shaking out the tension. “He only ever calls to give me shit, so I don’t know why I always answer anyway.” 

“‘Cause he’s your brother,” Derek shrugs one bare shoulder and offers a small, commiserating smile. For as often as a conversation with his father makes him feel like shit, he’ll still always pick up the phone for the guy. 

Dex huffs a short sigh and his shoulders slump. “Yeah.” 

Derek swallows and shifts the t-shirt in his hands back and forth. “So I take it your brother’s kind of a jerk, huh?” 

“No more than I am, I guess.” 

“You’re not--” Derek starts to argue, but Dex levels a look at him. Derek rolls his eyes and amends, “You are a grumpy asshole on occasion, yes, but you’re not, like, a douchebag about it. You’re just chronically uptight. It’s cute.” 

Dex snorts a quiet laugh that he fails at hiding behind the hot chocolate he’s finally picked up. “You are such a weirdo.” He shakes his head and looks down at his lap for a moment. Derek is about to fill the ensuing silence himself, when: “He thinks I’m going to lose my scholarship and end up back home.” 

“Wait, what? Why?” 

“I don’t know. He’s been saying it since I was eighteen and got my acceptance letter. I should probably learn to stop listening to him, but...” 

“Yeah. _But._ I know the feeling.” 

Dex gives him a skeptical raise of an eyebrow, but refrains from remarking verbally, which is a step forward as far as Derek’s concerned. 

“You’re not actually going to lose it, though, right?” Derek redirects. “I’ve seen you and C fucking slay at those computer courses, I know your GPA is solid.” 

“Well it would be if there wasn’t an English Gen Ed requirement.” 

Derek frowns. “That bad?” 

“Not bad, just not... up to my usual standards. I’ve got a solid B in the class right now, which was a fucking challenge to pull off, but I won’t make Dean’s List if that’s what I end the semester with, and that’s... I mean, it doesn’t _matter,_ not when it comes to my scholarship,but it definitely feels like failure anyway.”

This is honestly news to Derek. But much like buying the hot chocolate, he starts to act before his brain can catch up enough to question _why_. “Let me help you.”

“What,” Dex responds, flat and unimpressed.

“Not, like, tutor you or anything, but. You know how I helped Lardo with her thesis? That thing was a fucking English Major’s nightmare, but only because of style and format shit. Easy fixes usually, and the meat behind it was all still hers no matter what I did.” 

“I appreciate the thought, Nursey, but it’s not like I can offer you dibs in exchange. I have nothing to give you that would constitute a fair trade.” 

“Bro, I’m not offering because I want you to owe me one. I’m doing it because I--” Derek cuts himself off before he can say something that his brain hasn’t vetted yet. “Because...” He tries again, but trails off abruptly and swallows against a painfully dry throat. 

“ _Because_?” Dex prompts. 

Derek grips the shirt in his hands all the tighter. “Because I want to. I want to help.” 

Dex blinks. “Who are you and what have you done with my roommate?”

Derek doesn’t have the chance to respond with the _fuck off_ that’s on the tip of his tongue, because Dex stands up then and closes the distance between them like a man on a mission. Only to stop short a few inches away. “Oh my god, would you please put your shirt on already? I am not hugging you when you’re half naked.” 

Derek huffs a soft laugh but does as instructed. The moment the t-shirt is over his head and being pulled down his torso with both hands, Dex pulls him in.

It’s ostensibly a typical bro hug, with a lot of aggressive back patting. But it’s also closer and tighter and lingering a few seconds longer than what Derek was expecting.

It feels like a kind of progress he didn’t even know was an option.

It feels like an entirely new set of responses that Derek’s finally managed to provoke.

***

Derek starts writing the third story the day that “Dex” suddenly becomes “Will” in his head.

It happens out of nowhere as far as he’s concerned. But the moment when he’s watching Dex methodically tape up his stick in the stall next to him and his brain labels him as “Will,” the urge to put words on the page becomes nearly suffocating. 

This has officially become a bad habit. A compulsion. He wouldn’t go so far as to say an ‘obsession,’ but it definitely can’t be healthy. 

The third story follows a newly hired ranch hand and his boss’s eldest son. It’s a lot more dramatic than the first two, and ends a lot more explicitly than they do as well. 

At least Derek’s smart enough not to submit it anywhere this time. Maybe in a few months he’ll pull it back out, polish it up and see if it has any merit. But right now he’s content to just let it sit in the still rather small short story folder on his laptop, a messily annotated hard copy stuffed into the brown accordion folder of completed works he keeps under his bed.

Writing it at all was cathartic enough that he’s satisfied to leave it as is. 

It’s a strange feeling, though. It’s not often that he gets such a sense of _relief_ after coming out the other side a writing binge. Accomplishment, maybe. But more often than not just a numb sort of exhaustion and a need for a full meal and exposure to natural light. 

This time, he feels like a weight has been lifted from off his shoulders. Or a portion of it, anyway. Like what he put down on paper was something he desperately needed to express, but had been keeping locked up tight without even knowing it.

He celebrates with half a leftover pie, eating it straight out of the tin at the kitchen table, while finally taking a look at the English paper that Will gave him to edit. The Haus is the kind of quiet around him that he likes best, the sounds of people going about their day clear through the thing walls, but not overwhelming. A gentle reminder that he’s not alone, but that he doesn’t need to worry about being the Nursey that gets photographed for course catalogue covers.

Ollie and Wicks are arguing over Mario Kart in the living room. Bitty is skyping Jack in his bedroom above Derek’s head. Ford is jotting down notes while perched on a bar stool at the counter just a couple feet away.

“If you don’t get your feet off that table in the next ten seconds, I’m telling Bitty,” she says idly, not looking up from her work. 

Derek frowns, but puts his feet back on the floor, nearly falling out of his chair and knocking over his pie in the process. “Have I told you lately how mean you are? Because I’m pretty sure you’re about due for your hourly reminder.” 

Ford clucks her tongue against the inside of one round cheek like an impatient mother, while her hand scribbles away across her papers. Her slipper shoes have foxes on them and her cardigan is detailed in pink lace, but Derek is not fooled. She can be a menace when she wants to.

“ _Mean_ ,” he reiterates when she smirks at his klutziness.

“Oh I’m sorry, Nurse. I’d pull out the kid gloves for ya, but I’m a little busy prepping for our next show here.” 

“You mean ‘game.’” 

“Right. Game.” 

Derek snorts. It’s been how many months since she took over as manager, and she still makes the same verbal slip-ups as when she first started. “You’re just doing that on purpose now, aren’t you?”

Ford winks at him, and then returns to what she was doing so quickly that the gestures overlap and no one would believe that Derek wasn’t just seeing things.

He points a finger in her direction and shoves a piece of pie crust into his mouth. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Not as lucky as you are,” she replies sweetly, and then frowns at something on her notebook paper, scratching the blunt end of her pen against her temple thoughtfully.

Derek is about to ask what’s wrong, but gets beaten to the punch. As he so often does.

Will honestly seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to Ford that Derek is still a little flabbergasted by. Whenever she needs a spare hand or a sounding board or even just a friend, Will seems to show up from out of nowhere as though summoned.

He comes up behind her now, before either of them has noticed he’s even entered the room, places one large hand gently on her small shoulder, and uses the other to steal her pen. “You have us scheduled ten minutes too early next Monday.” 

Ford smiles and scoffs. “For a _reason_ , William.” She grabs the pen back. Will doesn’t attempt to fight her over it. Rather, he smiles back at her, and then clears his throat against the soft expression, ducking his head with a slight blush.

He’s practically _always_ blushing though, so Derek doesn’t read into it. 

Even if...

Well. Even if the only girl Derek has ever seen Will spend any significant amount of time with at Samwell is Ford. They originally bonded over scheduling logistics and whatever OCD compulsions the rest of the team rolled their eyes at but that made sure hotel rooms were always booked and busses were always at full tank. 

Derek found it amusing at first, the idea of Poindexter being so buddy-buddy with a _Theater Major_. But whenever he sees them together anymore the only thing he can think is that... they fit. Their friendship makes a weird sort of sense that _his_ friendship with Dex never has.

Ford compliments Will in all of the ways that Derek would if Derek weren’t so unable to be his true self around the guy, rather than putting up this constant mask. 

If Derek could just admit to anyone out loud that he really does fucking love perfecting a bibliography, then maybe he’d be something like what Ford is for Will, and he would be able to let Will be for Derek what Will obviously is for Ford. A hand on a shoulder in comfort, a teasing grab at a pen.

Derek looks back down at Will’s English paper and refuses to think about it.

When Will sits down across from him, still flushed lightly across the apples of both cheeks, and opens up his textbook, Derek doesn’t react beyond a casual head nod.

Will reads for a time, highlighting passages and occasionally humming under his breath. Ford, still at the counter, hums the same tune off and on under her own.

Derek pushes the rest of his pie across the table and hands Will his fork without a word.

***

They don’t make it to the playoffs this year. Which, all things considered, doesn’t hit any of them as hard as it could have. They played good hockey, Bitty’s been an amazing captain, but the calls were never on their side pretty much all season. 

At the ensuing _lets lick our wounds in style_ kegster, Derek nurses a single beer for far too long, uninterested in getting shwasted, which was a rarity last year.

Instead, he stands in the background, propped against a far wall, and watches his teammates enjoy themselves. He tries to imagine situations in which he would be comfortable enough with any of them to be open and honest without fear. In which he would let his guard down so much as to be _randomly nice_ without realizing he’s doing it until it’s already done.

To an extent he’s able to do this with Chowder, Bitty, and Lardo, even if sparingly. But he’s always kept a close eye on how much he puts out there of himself, even when with people he knows would welcome him with open arms and reciprocate his emotional commitment times a hundred.

So how the hell did William Poindexter, the one person besides Derek’s father that Derek doesn’t allow himself to be vulnerable in front of, become the one person he now reaches out for without thinking?

He shakes his head and finishes his beer. This is not the time for those kinds of thoughts.

“Are you alright?” Lardo sidles up next to him then, and Derek is grateful he no longer has a drink in his hand because he would’ve probably just spilled it all over himself. He honestly forgot she was coming tonight.

“Hey Lards. Yeah, I’m good. You?”

She shrugs in answer, and then narrows her eyes at him. “You don’t _look_ good.”

“Wow, thanks. Nice to see you too, bro.”

She ignores this. Lardo is a pro at only acknowledging the parts of a conversation that she deems relevant. “I read what you wrote, you know.”

Derek looks away, out towards the throng of bodies all drinking, laughing, dancing, as his fingers play with his empty solo cup. Beside him, Lardo is pressed close enough that her elbow digs into his hip. The top of her head doesn’t even reach his shoulder, but she’s still an intimidating presence. A comforting one, too, but mostly intimidating.

“Yeah I know. I got your congratulations text.”

“No, not that one. The other one.”

Derek whips is head back towards her, nearly choking on his own saliva. “What? How did you--”

“Shitty told me about it, so I looked it up.”

“Did he...”

“He hasn’t read it.”

“Right. Okay. Okay, good.”

“The terror in your eyes right now is kinda giving away exactly how fucked you know you are.”

Derek sighs. A Beyoncé song comes on and the crowd cheers. Bitty emerges from out of the kitchen to join them.

Will is nowhere in sight, hasn’t been since the party first got underway, but Derek refuses to wonder after his whereabouts.

“I wrote a third one after that,” he admits aloud for the first time.

“...Well shit.”

“Yeah.”

“You gotta stop doing this to yourself, bro.”

“I didn’t think...” Derek groans and runs a hand over his face. “I thought it would blow over. That it didn’t have to mean anything. It _doesn’t_ mean anything. But... fuck. I didn’t know it would feel like this.”

Lardo places a small but steady hand on Derek’s forearm. “Like what?”

“Like I want to write another one.”

He wishes Lardo had some profound advice to offer in response, but he also knows it’s unfair of him to expect it. Lardo can be just as insecure and secretly unchill as he is, and he’s always been careful not to place too many expectations on her shoulders.

She offers to go get him another drink, but then gets wrangled into a game of beer pong on her way back. Derek didn’t really want to drink more anyway, despite not even being buzzed, and takes the opportunity to slip upstairs.

Will is passed out in the top bunk when Derek stumbles into their room in the dark. The party is obnoxiously loud below them, if somewhat muffled by the floorboards and the weatherproofing Dex singlehandedly installed throughout the Haus last semester. But they’ve both learned to sleep through worse. It’s all just white noise now anyway, and Derek stands in the middle of the room staring at Dex’s shadowed outline for longer than he normally would. The night feels hyper-real, and he wishes suddenly then he _had_ drunk enough to be able to forget this in the morning.

Derek undresses down to his boxerbriefs and slips into bed. He’s well on the way to unconsciousness before he notices the water bottle and aspirin on the bedside table by his head.

He blinks slowly and struggles to wake back up enough to understand what he’s looking at.

There’s no note, but it’s obviously Will’s doing. Who else would it be? And obviously Will assumed Derek would be coming to bed drunk tonight. Which, fair. There’s a reason Nursey Patrol exists. But that isn’t what’s got Derek’s tired thoughts tripping over themselves as he stares.

This might just be the closest thing to being taken care of that Derek’s ever encountered outside of Bitty or his mother on a good day.

More than that, this feels like such a casual thing. Like Will didn’t even have to _think_ about it. Like looking out for Derek, having Derek’s back, is just a natural part of who he is and how he operates in the world, whether Derek bothers to notice it or not.

Derek’s noticed. Of course he has. But it’s been so much easier to pretend not to.

Derek swallows heavily and turns over to face the wall, focusing on the music and voices coming up through the floorboards, rather than what’s going on in his own head, as he falls asleep.

***

Finals are looming, and graduation on top of it, and an entire summer stretching out empty after that, and so maybe that’s why the moment hits Derek so profoundly. He’s already vulnerable is the thing, already harried and nervous and trying to pretend otherwise, and so it hits him like a physical punch to the gut as he comes up short at the top of the Haus staircase.

There’s a sock on their bedroom doorknob.

A sock. On the doorknob. Of their closed bedroom door.

This has never happened before.

Derek feels like he just swallowed a brick. 

But that’s normal, right? Just part of growing up. Brick swallowing. The thing about bourgeoning adulthood that no one fully explains beforehand. You internalize a lot of weight and you hope everyone around you somehow simultaneously both doesn’t notice and also tries to empathize. 

This is fine. Perfectly normal. Derek is... fine. 

He turns on his heel and walks straight into Chowder’s room without knocking. 

Chowder looks up, startled, from the book he was reading, sitting cross-legged on his bed with a giant shark plush in his lap. 

“There’s a sock on our doorknob,” Derek says dumbly. 

Chowder’s eyes narrow in confusion, and then suddenly go wide as saucers. “Oh! Oh my god! Do you think Dex--” He stops mid-sentence, taking in whatever Derek’s facial features are currently doing that Derek has no control over anymore. “ _Oh_. Oh no. Are you-- What’s happening right now? Are you freaking out?” 

“...Yes?” 

“And do you understand _why_ you’re freaking out?” 

“I...” Derek swallows back bile. He is not going to have a panic attack over this, he’s _not_. This is _fine_. “No?” 

Chowder frowns. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to pretend to believe that or not. What would be more helpful right now?” 

“Uh, the first option. Please.” 

“Right. Willful ignorance. Can do.” He stands up from the bed and steps forward, arms rising as if to embrace Derek, but then hesitates, hovering a few inches away. “Do you need a hug? I feel like you need a hug.”

“It’s Ford, isn’t it?”

Chowder rears back in surprise. “What?”

“It’s chill, dude. I mean, I get it. Ford is amazing. And cute. And Poindexter would be lucky to--” His voice breaks a little and he has to stop talking abruptly to try to get his breathing back under control.

Derek doesn’t think he’s ever seen Chowder look so sad. Not pitying, just sad. “Yeah, Ford is awesome,” Chris agrees softly. “But I don’t really think Dex would mess around with someone involved with team management.”

“Fair point. But.” Derek sucks in a breath. “It’s... it’s _someone_. He’s in there with someone _right now_ and they’re...”

Jealousy is the wrong word. Derek has never really gotten _jealous_ , has never seen the point. This feels more like loss. Like the numb shock that immediately proceeds mourning. Except that he’s not even completely certain what it is that’s gone.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Chowder says carefully.

Derek is trying to remember how exactly sitting even works, how any of his limbs are supposed to operate, when the bedroom door bursts open.

“ _Chris, there is a sock on our doorknob_. Is Nursey--” Will shoves his way into the room, and then freezes when he sees Derek and Chowder.

He and Derek stare at each other blankly for a very long moment.

“I thought--” Derek starts, at the same time Will says, “But if you’re--”

Chowder claps his hands together. “Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever been this relieved to know that none of my friends are getting laid. ‘Swawesome.”

Bitty, humming to himself, walks by the open doorway with a laundry basket balanced on his hip just then. He pauses, not quite out of ear shot, with a stage-whispered, “Now that’s where that got to,” that does doesn’t sound even close to innocent.

Derek chokes. Eric Bittle is evil.

“It’s cool, though, if you were. If you wanted to...” Will makes a vague hand gesture towards Derek, and then blushes and clears his throat, averting his eyes. “I don’t mind if you need the room sometimes. For whatever. Or whoever. I didn’t mean to sound all weird about it. It’s totally cool where and when you wanna hook up with someone.”

“Oh. Uh. Same, bro.” If it sounds as forced as it feels, then Derek might have some explaining to do shortly.

But Will doesn’t appear to notice. He scoffs a little, his tone the kind of self-deprecating that Derek used to think was just a product of his general grumpiness, but now understands is a symptom of something more serious. Something that a part of Derek really wants to try to fix, even if he’s yet to make much headway fixing it in himself. “Yeah, like that’ll happen any time soon.”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up. “Hey, man, don’t talk like that. You’re a catch, alright?”

“Total catch,” Chowder repeats with some vigorous head-nodding.

The pained expression that appears on Will’s face suggests they missed the mark on this one though. “Right, uh, that’s nice of you guys and all? But that wasn’t what I... I’m not...” Will huffs and looks up at the ceiling, like he’s ready and willing to be struck down by a higher power just to get out of this conversation. “I don’t do casual. I don’t _do_... much of anything.”

“Is this a self-esteem thing? Because, Dex, bro, you’re plenty attractive.”

“Super hot,” Chowder agree easily, sounding like he means it.

“Oh my god,” Will mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listen, not that it’s anyone’s business, but it doesn’t work the same way for me as it does for you guys. I have to actually _like_ the person, _a lot_ , before I want to... I mean, I can find someone attractive, but I have to already be... like, _all in,_ before I want to really do anything with them. So if I was sleeping with someone? You guys would definitely know about it.”

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Chowder says. “That’s cool, Dex. There’s a word for that, isn’t there? Shitty would know.”

“You can use whatever word you want, C, I’m not picky. All I’m trying to say here is that you two would definitely know if I was close enough with someone to be hooking up with them. You guys are my best friends, there’s no way you wouldn’t know.”

The implications of this are kind of a lot for Derek to take in, not least of which because Will has just trusted them both with a fairly personal piece of information and it feels like a big deal. A bigger deal than Will obviously wants to make it.

If Derek were a better person he’d leave it at that. Save his questions and his platitudes for another time, if ever.

If Derek were a person who was at all capable of making beneficial life decisions for himself, he would let the whole thing go.

Instead, because he’s a god damn masochist apparently, he asks, “What about Ford?”

Will frowns. “What _about_ Ford?”

“I thought maybe you guys... you know. She’s cute. And you already like her a lot, I know you do. I mean, you guys are _friends_ , so.”

“Jesus Christ, are you gonna start assuming I want to sleep with _all_ of my friends now?”

“Just the pretty ones.” Derek winks.

Will rolls his eyes. “That’s basically all of them.”

“Aw,” Chowder grins. “Thanks.”

Will blushes brightly.

Derek digs his fingers into the meat of his own thighs and presses on. Why he can’t let this go is currently beyond him, even with Chowders narrowed, knowing gaze sharply pointed in his direction. “You act different around her though.”

“Different than how I act around _you_ , sure. But that’s because you’re... You’re you.”

Derek has no idea what that means. Will makes a face like he doesn’t quite know either, but doesn’t have any other words to explain himself. He shrugs a little helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to say, man. I like her, but I don’t feel that way about her. I’m sorry? Whatever. I’m going into our room now and forgetting this entire conversation ever happened.”

A sigh of relief gets punched out of Derek at that, like his brain was just waiting for the out that it wouldn’t give itself. “Solid plan, I’m in.”

Chowder shakes his head as they exit through the shared bathroom, but whatever he grumbles under his breath is thankfully too low for Derek to make out.

Behind closed doors, he and Will settle in with their homework easily, the same way they have most evenings this semester. Will takes the desk, Derek takes the floor, his back against the side of his bed. It’s quiet for the first thirty minutes or so, but not uncomfortably so. Whatever lingering awkwardness from earlier that Derek was worried about has been left behind.

Which is probably why he has to clear his throat and quietly bring it all up again. “You don’t have to worry about me either, you know.”

“Worry about you what?” Will asks, distracted, eyes furiously scanning a page in his textbook.

“Hooking up randomly in here.”

That catches Will’s attention, and he looks up with a beleaguered scowl. “It’s your room too, Nurse. I already told you it’s fine if you want to--”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to. I don’t really do casual either. Not anymore.”

“Oh.” Will blinks. “Okay?”

“Just, you know, FYI.”

“Right. Uh, you mind if we stop talking about our shared lack of sex lives and get back to our homework now?”

Derek laughs. “Yeah, chill.”

And it is chill. Everything is good. Derek is _fine._

Even though he didn’t even realize that he’s been avoiding casual hookups all this school year until he was saying it aloud just now.

Even though he has to read the same paragraph of the book in his hands a dozen times over before it starts to make sense, his head too busy replaying the words “you guys are my best friends” over and over again.

Even though. His fingers itch to reach out. And smooth a wayward lock of red hair away from Will’s forehead.

Or steal Will’s textbook with a laugh until Will wrestles it back.

Or any of a million things that Derek hasn’t yet thought of and won’t ever let himself.

***

There’s a frankly obscene amount of pie cooling across the kitchen counters when Derek gets home from his last class before reading week. Which is saying something considering who he lives with.

“Dex aced his English course!” Bitty proclaims brightly while pulling yet another pie from the oven.

Will ducks his head and shoves a bite of peach cobbler into his mouth. “I still have to take the final. Bitty was just looking for an excuse to avoid studying.”

Bitty points his spatula at Will menacingly. “I am allowed to celebrate my Frogs’ achievements, William. And I know you were nervous about this one. A solid A before the final is nothing to sneeze at.”

“Really? You’ve got an A in the class?” Derek asks as he falls into a chair at the table beside Will. It takes everything in him and then some not to grin like an idiot.

“Don’t look so shocked, Nurse, you’re the one who made all my papers readable. And your weird boner for bibliographies was a life saver.”

Bitty puts a hand on his hip and raises his eyebrows at Will pointedly.

Will rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and sighs. “What I _mean_ is: thank you. I couldn’t have done it without your help.”

“Yeah you could’ve. I hardly did anything.”

“No, really, Nursey. Thanks.”

The sincerity in Will’s eyes is a little too much to have directed at him without warning. Derek shifts in his seat and starts rearranging the pies in front of him so that the coconut cream is closer to where he’s sitting. “You’re welcome. Any time.”

When Derek finally looks back up, Will has got his eyes trained firmly on his own plate as he concentrates on finishing off his slice, and Bitty is beaming at the both of them like he can barely contain his glee.

Derek scowls back at him, but Bitty just bites back delighted laughter and returns to his baking.

That evening, Chowder, Farmer, Ford, Will and Derek are all sprawled across the living room in various states of intense digestion after working their way through about half of the baked goods Bitty produced earlier. Mystery Science Theater is playing on the television in front of them, but they’re as much watching it as idly arguing amongst themselves over whose turn it is to pick the next movie.

It’s not an uncommon way to end the day, but it catches Derek off guard to realize it when he finds himself watching his friends instead of the TV. He’s comfortable here, even if he does still hold himself differently than how he would if he were completely alone. He’s guarded, even now, but less so than he’s ever been around anyone else in his life.

Will is sitting on the floor beside where Derek is sitting on the couch, and his shoulder is pressed against Derek’s knee. This here, in particular, is so jarring in how completely normal it is. Has it always been normal? And has it ever been normal with anyone else?

“Best friends,” Will called them the other day, and Derek hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Only now does he finally think he understands why he’s been struggling with acknowledging that he agrees with the sentiment.

Because yeah, they are best friends, but a completely different definition of the term than Derek has ever considered. Not that he’s ever had much reason to consider the term at all, he supposes. Chowder was really his first best friend, the first person close to his own age that he felt like he could always count on other than his sister.

Will is nothing like Chowder. But Derek’s relationship with him is still its own kind of reliable and important and _good_. And the progression of that relationship over the course of Derek’s college career so far, he’s starting to suspect, is going to be one of the most defining parts of this point in his life.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Will mutters over his shoulder at Derek without taking his eyes of the televisions screen.

Derek flicks the back of one of Will’s ears, and gets an elbow to his shin for it. “You’re the only one complaining, Poindexter, so I don’t think it qualifies as loud enough for a reprimand.”

“Loud enough to be distracting.”

“Oh, I’m distracting now? Tell me more.” Derek watches with a pleased little smirk as a blush spreads across the back of Will’s neck.

“Just quit with the brooding and watch the movie, Nurse.”

“Only because you asked so nicely.” Derek settles back into the couch cushions a bit deeper, and presses his knee a bit more firmly against Will’s shoulder.

Will is tense against him for a couple of minutes, though he doesn’t move away. And by the time Ford and Farmer have successfully manipulated their way into full control of the entertainment center, Will has relaxed enough that Derek very nearly reaches out to run his fingers through Will’s hair before he catches himself.

He has to sit on his own hands for the rest of the evening to keep it from happening again.

***

Short story number four gets pulled, kicking and screaming, from out of Derek at three in the god damn morning the night before his last final.

He still doesn’t know what he’s going to do with his summer break and he’s panicking. Has been quietly panicking for weeks now, but suddenly he can no longer hold it in anymore. He wakes up in the middle of the night and heads downstairs so he can pace the length of the Haus living room without waking anybody up.

About an hour into this, with no sign of being able to get back to sleep any time soon, he sneaks back upstairs to grab his laptop, and then sets up shop at the kitchen table to write.

It’s nothing like the other stories. And it’s definitely about Will. There’s no point in pretending otherwise.

_“I think I hated you because I loved you too much,” Alex said, hanging his head. “I think I still hate you for it. Before you came around I never had to feel anything more than I wanted to. I could control it. Only take in as much as I knew I could handle. But you... You force it all in until I think I might explode with it, and I can’t make it stop.”_

_Sarah stared at him, stricken. Her hands shook. Any moment now she was going to turn around and leave. Leave_ him _. Alex knew it, but held his hands out to her helplessly anyway. “Make it stop, Sarah. Please.”_

Shit.

Derek places one hand flat over his heart and draws in a deep breath, focusing on the feeling of his chest expanding against his palm.

For the first time, he allows himself to open up the buried box from the deep recesses of his mind and start organizing its emotional contents, like notecards for an essay outline.

When it all laid out before him, here in the dark, an obvious thesis forms.

Derek puts his arms down on the kitchen table, rests his forehead on them, and closes his eyes. In the morning he’ll have talk to Chowder about it all. Or Bitty. Or maybe he’ll call up Shitty or Lardo. He’ll tell them that he’s ready to admit a few things, but that it still doesn’t have to _mean_ what they obviously all want it to.

What _he_ wants it to.

He’s still him and Will is still Will. They’re still just Nursey and Dex.

No matter how many times Derek keeps trying to rewrite them as something else.

In the morning he’ll print out a copy of this latest story and stuff it into the brown accordion folder with the others. He’ll take his last final of the year. He’ll head back home to New York and face his empty summer from the inside of his equally empty brownstone. And he’ll put all of these pieces he’s just let himself sort through back into the imaginary box in the farthest corner of his mind and bury it again.

“ _You giant fucking idiot_ ,” he whispers to himself as he drifts off to sleep for a few blissful minutes.

When he wakes up, there’s a weight in his chest that won’t go away.

It sticks with him through his final, through saying goodbye to Bitty at graduation and cheering on Chowder’s unanimous win for Captaincy. Through packing his bags and getting his train ticket and calling his sister to see if she’ll be stopping by their parents’ place at all while he’s there.

It’s with him, heavier than ever, as he gives Will a solid, one-armed hug, and then hands him the overstuffed accordion folder of stories.

Derek is so very tired of holding back.

“What’s this?” Will asks, readjusting the strap of his duffel bag with his other hand. His brother is sitting in a pickup truck just outside the Haus, waiting for him.

“A semester’s worth of short fiction,” Derek shrugs and swallows back bile. “You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. I just. I needed to give it to you.”

“Okay.” Will frowns at the coffee stain on the edge of the folder. “If I _do_ read it, though, I’m not going to pretend to like it just for the sake of your ego.”

Derek smiles a little. “I know.”

Will shifts and tucks the folder under his arm. “Alright then. I’ll email you what I think, I guess.”

“No rush.”

“Right. Have a good summer, Nurse.”

“Yeah. You too, Will.”

Will’s brow furrows at the use of his first name, but his brother honks the pickup truck’s horn before he can comment. He shrugs it off and punches Derek in the arm on his way out the door.

Derek watches him go until well after the truck is out of sight, trying to fight back the urge to either throw up or hyperventilate.

This is the biggest piece of himself he’s ever given someone.

And Derek knows it’s a mistake. He does. He is very well aware that this particular brand of impending doom he’s facing down right now is entirely of his own making. 

But he still can’t quite bring himself to regret any of his actions leading up to it. 

***

The summer starts the same as it always does. Derek doesn’t really have many friends in the city anymore, and his buddies from Andover that are nearby aren’t the kinds of people he’d go out of his way to see even when he was going to school with them. His parents are traveling. His sister always chooses summer school over having to return home. Nothing’s changed.

Derek’s days are long and idle for the first week, mostly spent napping and reading and occasionally day drinking while marathoning shows on Netflix.

The second week, he considers getting a job. He tried his hand at a few minimum wage efforts last summer, but only managed to figure out the hard way that the food service industry and his inability to go more than an hour without dropping something aren’t very well suited for each other.

He has this image of himself in his head working in some small bookstore in the Village, picking the perfect playlist of background music every morning as he opens, shelving books while holding a fair trade coffee in his other hand, meeting the girl of his dreams when she walks in one morning with a canvas tote full of vinyl records, an elaborate tattoo winding up her left calf.

The fantasy falls apart pretty quickly though. Derek doesn’t have any retail experience, which apparently is something bookstores, however trendy and hole-in-the-wall, look for in an employee. And he doesn’t actually have any interest in meeting “the girl of his dreams.” Any image he can conjure up of this fictional person, no matter how perfect he envisions them, pales in comparison to the real life person he now knows he wants and knows he can’t have.

Derek writes, but can’t seem to finish more than a page of anything.

On the Thursday afternoon of week three, he gets pulled from out of the book he’s been buried in since he woke up that morning by the buzzer at the front door.

“You asshole.”

Of course it’s Will. Of course it is. Standing there on Derek’s doorstep and looking absolutely furious.

All Derek can do is stare dumbly back at him. Will’s red hair is mussed, like he’s been running his hands through it all day, and is slightly longer than he ever lets it get outside of the playoffs. His amber eyes are shining bright with anger, and his mouth is twisted meanly, lips pressed so tight against each other they’ve turned white at the edges, highlighting the fact that he has faint freckles even there.

“You fucking asshole,” he says again, practically spitting, and holds up a familiar accordion folder between them. “Why the hell did you give me this?”

“I...” Derek’s brain attempts a reboot and fails, unable to reconcile what he’s seeing with the reality he’s been living since he got to New York. “How are you here right now?”

Will heaves a frustrated breath that’s almost a growl. “I borrowed my brother’s truck. And I’m making you pay me back for the gas. Now answer the damn question, Nurse.”

Derek’s gaze slides down to the folder and the crumpled pages nearly falling out of it, the large, cracking rubber band around the middle about to break. This feels like a safer thing to stare at than whatever Will’s expression is going to morph into. Will’s anger Derek can deal with, but anything else might prove fatal. “I take it you weren’t a fan, huh?”

“Are you kidding me? You actually have the nerve to-- Fuck. You don’t get to do this, Derek. I’m not a member of your damn fan club that you can just jerk around like--”

“Jerk around?” Derek snaps his gaze back up, and the look on Will’s face is bordering on broken, only barely held together by his rapidly fading anger.

“We’re supposed to be friends now, you dick.” Will punctuates his words by shoving the folder into Derek’s chest, hard enough that Derek stumbles back half a step and has no choice but to grab hold of it himself before it falls. “You don’t get to ruin the three years of hard fucking work that it took for us to get here by pretending that you actually-- that you’d even consider-- God damn it, _why did you give me this?_ What did you possibly hope to accomplish?”

Derek licks his lips and tries to remember to breathe. He feels exposed and raw, but for once refuses to do anything to hide it. “I just. I didn’t know how else to say it other than to write it. I didn’t even know it needed saying _until_ I was writing it.”

“Say _what?_ ”

“That I’m in love with you.” It feels so simple suddenly, and so innate that it seems strange he hasn’t ever admitted it out loud before. Derek shuffles his feet but doesn’t back down. “Obviously.”

Will shakes his head, suddenly not meeting Derek’s eyes. “No, you’re not.”

“I am.”

“Well then you’ll get over it!” he shouts. His hands are in fists at his sides, clenched so tightly they’re vibrating.

Derek swallows and, after a few breaths, he nods. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“Like you care what I want. Those stories... They have nothing to do with me. Just because you paint a pretty picture of how you want things to work out...”

“Is that really what you think I was doing?”

“Fuck you, I know what I read. Every version of us that _isn’t us_ ends up together. It doesn’t work that way in real life and you know it.”

Will’s eyes are glassy, and Derek’s heart is in a vice.

He glances around at the mostly deserted street, clears his throat, and then opens the door behind him a little wider. “Look, uh, can you come inside for a minute? No one’s home, and you can leave whenever you want, I promise. Just. Come inside with me and let’s talk for a sec. Please.”

It’s probably the only miracle he’s going to get today that Will hesitates but then reluctantly nods and follows him.

Once inside, though, nothing about this whole thing feels any easier than it did before.

Will is the same six-foot-two-inches of bulky hockey player that Derek is, but he looks almost small standing in the middle of the Nurse’s living area with its vaulted ceilings and original Rothko’s. His shoulders are slightly hunched and his eyes keep skittering around the room as though uncertain of the safest place to land. As though nowhere is safe, but Derek least of all.

“Listen, it was never about trying to turn us into something we’re not,” Derek begins, still holding tight to that damn folder and not knowing how to let go of it without making a scene. “I get it, alright? You don’t feel that way about me. And I know I can’t write my way out of you being straight or me being a walking disaster. No amount of words can change any of that. I only wanted to show this shit to you because I felt like I was going to combust if I didn’t let it all out. Whatever you want to do with that, light it all on fire or punch me in the face or whatever, I’m okay with it. Hell, I probably deserve it.”

Will shakes his head. “What you deserve...” And then all at once he deflates. “Is not anything that I can give you, Nursey.”

“I’ve seen your right hook, man, I think it’ll do the job.”

“You’re an idiot but you’re not stupid, Derek.” Will glares at him, a little of his original fire returning. “You really think I came all this way because I want to hit you? That I haven’t been going out of my mind since the day we moved in together falling for you?”

Derek rears back, feeling sucker punched more so than if Will _had_ actually hit him. A choked, “ _What?_ ” is all he can manage in response.

“I never said I was straight. I never said I was anything other than _bad at this_ , because it never really mattered until now. But just because I feel... No, you know what? It still doesn’t matter. Because we’re not doing this.”

“Of course we are. We’ve _been_ doing this. If there is even a fraction of a chance that you’re on the same page as I am then, fuck dude, I wanna try. I want to go all in with you.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Will shakes his head again. “I... I’m a challenge, Nurse. I’m not easy.”

“And what in three years of knowing me gave you the impression that I like doing anything the easy way?” Derek steps forward, and Will steps back.

“Seriously, man. You know me, you know I have to be challenged to be good at something. I mean, come on, I’m the biggest klutz on campus, but then somehow graceful as shit when on _ice skates_? I purposefully make patterns in the bubbles for the multiple choice questions on tests instead of looking for the right answers just to see if I can kill it on the essay prompts and ace my classes anyway. _Yes,_ you are most definitely a challenge, Poindexter, and I am going to love every minute of trying to meet it.”

Derek tosses the folder onto the couch and steps forward again. Will stays where he is this time, but puts a hand up, placing it on Derek’s chest, not quite holding him back, not quite resting there.

Derek wants to grab onto it with both of his own hands, but makes himself wait. Breathe. Hope.

“...It’s not going to be like how you wrote it,” Will says evenly.

“I only wrote it at all because I knew the reality would be better.”

“Don’t say shit like that. There’s no way I can live up to that.”

“You already have.”

He takes a final step forward. Will’s hand falls away.

There is a split second before their mouths touch when it feels like the whole world could end and Derek wouldn’t even notice. He’s so hyper-focused on the warmth of Will’s quick breaths against his cheeks, the millimeter of space between their bodies that feels like nothing at all and yet so impossibly wide a distance to finally bridge.

Will closes his eyes and Derek can just make out the slight tremble of his bottom lip, before he tilts his head and kisses it away.

It’s a gentle, feather-light sort of kiss. A soft, quick test of how they fit together. And yet both of them are left breathless from the impact.

“Do you... I mean, is this okay? Is kissing on the acceptable list or the unacceptable one?” It’s definitely on Derek’s acceptable list, but he doesn’t want to assume, especially when this dazed and punch-drunk. His legs are going to give out at any moment, and he doesn’t even realize he’s got a death grip on both sleeves of Will’s shirt until Will shifts to raise his own hands up and grab hold of the bottom hem of Nursey’s tank top.

“If you were anyone else, then the unacceptable one.”

“...But?”

“But I spent all of last semester trying to ignore the fact that you’re the first person I’ve wanted to sleep with since I was seventeen, so I think we’re good.”

Derek’s breath hitches. “Do you still want that?”

“ _God yes_.” But then Will visibly braces himself, and slowly pushes himself a few inches away from Derek. “Well. I _want_. But this is only maybe the second time in my entire life that I’ve _ever_ wanted. And it’s the _first_ time that the wanting might actually lead anywhere.”

“Oh.”

Will backs away even farther, and Derek desperately keeps hold of him. “When do you have to be back home?” he asks, soundly a little wild and a little wrecked, and entirely too affected by what was barely a peck.

“I wasn’t planning on staying. I have a shift at my uncle’s shop on Saturday.”

“Then just stay tonight at least, yeah? I don’t want to spend the whole summer not knowing where we stand.”

A considering look crosses Will’s face. And then, without warning, he ducks his head and kisses Derek again, quick but firm. A promise. “Alright,” he says. “I’ll stay for tonight.”

***

Derek pulls up the Netflix account on the main room’s television and lets Will pick a movie while he orders enough Thai food to feed a small army. They’re careful as they navigate around each other in a way that they’ve never been before, overly conscious of every inch between their bodies and every moment when they might accidentally touch.

This lasts all through dinner and on into the first half of their second movie, until Derek finally can’t take it anymore. He stands up as something on the screen before them explodes. He doesn’t even remember what they’re watching. “I’m going to bed.”

Will blinks at him dumbly for a moment, but then shakes off his stupor and stands as well. “Alright. I’m pretty worn out from the drive anyway.”

Derek swallows and nods his head. “Chill. There’s a guest room next to mine.”

The expression on Will’s face is one Derek’s seen often, like Will is wondering if Derek hit his head recently. “I don’t need a guest room,” he says slowly.

“Couch?”

“Are we really having this conversation right now?”

“Well excuse me for needing clear boundaries, man. I don’t want to fuck up when we’ve barely even started.”

The small smile that crosses Will’s face is fragile and more smirk than not. “I have a feeling we’re both going to be fucking up a lot, Nursey, might as well get used to it now.” His tone doesn’t waver, but Derek can hear the fear behind his words.

Derek looks away, fighting with himself not to start holding back as much as he normally would when it comes to Will. When it comes to anyone. The last time he was open and honest and completely _himself_ with someone he was romantically involved with was... Well. Never.

He has no idea if he’s doing this correctly or not, no idea if what comes out of his mouth next is going to be the truth or a deflection. But something in his expression must give away his internal struggle, because Will sighs and it isn’t nearly as long suffering as Derek was expecting.

Will places a hand on Derek’s shoulder and squeezes tight, and then slips that hand up to Derek’s neck, holding on in a steady, comforting grip. “You’re doing your internal freak out thing again.”

Derek leans into Will until their foreheads are resting against each other. “All part of the Derek Nurse seduction technique. Just wait ‘til I break out the unhealthy coping mechanisms and father issues.”

Will sighs again, and this time it sounds almost sad. “I’m starting to suspect that I’m not the only one here who has no idea what I’m doing.”

“Caught onto that, huh?”

“We are going to fuck this up so much, Derek.”

Derek closes his eyes. “I know. But I still want to try. We can write up a list of ground rules at some point if that’ll help. And in the meantime how about we just agree that mistakes will be made, but they won’t be made for the wrong reasons. So... we’re gonna be okay, you know?”

“You really believe that?”

“It took three years of hard work for us to get here, right? That doesn’t mean we don’t have a few more years of it still in us. I’m willing to put in the effort if you are.”

Derek doesn’t see it until he pulls away enough to take in Will’s whole face, but the grin that greets him will be etched into his memory for a very long time to come.

Getting into bed together is a quiet affair. They strip down to their underwear, shove the bedding aside, and lie beside each other without a word. Derek drinks his fill of the man beside him and doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of it.

On the ice their bodies look deceptively similar. Same height, same weight class, same natural tendency to look out for Chowder at all costs. Even in the locker room, Will’s body was always just another of many that Derek never really focused on well enough to notice any immediate differences from his own.

It wasn’t until they were sharing a bedroom and a bathroom that it started to become apparent how differently they’re built. Will’s muscles form flat, sharp planes across his broad chest, instead of the curves that Derek’s muscles do. Will is hard and compact and lithe. A body made for running track rather than lifting weights, the opposite of Derek’s in so many ways despite their shared height and strength.

They kiss for only the third time, slow and exploratory, for several long minutes. The fourth time is more heated, but still achingly unhurried. By the fifth, it’s devolved into a wet, urgent back and forth, the both of them panting against swollen lips but unwilling to give up any ground. It feels like the kind of argument they both secretly love.

Derek levels himself up onto an elbow, hovering over Will, and finally pulls back enough to attempt to catch his breath. He fans his fingers out wide across Will’s ribs, marveling at the pale white skin and tawny freckles in stark contrast between each digit.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispers.

“I don’t know,” Will whispers back, breathless, his hands moving restlessly up and down Derek’s back like he wants to touch everywhere all at once. “Anything. Everything. I just... I _want_...”

Derek reaches across Will towards the bedside table, and ends up collapsing down on top of him, startling out a whoosh of breath and an unexpected laugh.

“What the fuck?” Will continues laughing, shoving ineffectually at Derek’s bulk.

Derek just grins and reaches for the lube in the drawer before picking himself back up, a twinkle in his eyes. “Let me know if you don’t like something, alright?”

Will shakes his head with an amused expression, a fondness behind his laughter that makes Derek’s chest feel like it’s cracking open. “Real smooth there, buddy.”

“Laughter is the best aphrodisiac.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Nurse.”

Derek ducks his head down and nips at a spot just below Will’s collar bone. Will yelps and playfully pushes him to the side.

Derek takes the opportunity to sit up and pull his underwear off, and then grab for Will’s to do the same.

Will’s breath hitches, and Derek pauses. “Good?”

“Good,” Will nods, and Derek keeps going.

They’re already both hard, Will painfully so, his cock flushed and leaking against his hip. There is _so much_ Derek wants to do with him, but he figures he should start slow.

They’ve got time.

He strokes himself first in a lube-slick grip, and Will’s wide-eyed staring, tongue darting out to lick his still swollen lips as he watches, is enough to get Derek just as far gone as it looks like he is.

Derek lines them up and wraps his hand around the both of them.

Will gasps, arches up into it, and then reaches down between them with a hand to tangle with Derek’s.

They both fuck into the circle of their joined hands with the kind of unspoken rhythm that could only come from years of always knowing where the other is on the ice, always being able to pass the puck between each other without looking and knowing it will connect. For whatever disagreements and differences that have come up between them along the way, their bodies have always known each other.

Will’s breaths start coming short and fast, his eyes squeezed shut tightly, and he’s so close Derek gets all the closer himself just witnessing it. He was sixteen the last time a damn handjob felt this good, but right now he’s certain that he’s been ruined for anyone else that might ever want to touch him. All Will would have to do is kiss him and he’d be done.

Will doesn’t kiss him. He makes a wounded noise and then comes messily between them, his whole body shuddering through it.

Derek speeds up the movement of their hands until Will whimpers, oversensitive, and when Derek doesn’t stop he bites at a spot on Derek’s jaw in retaliation. The brief, sharp pain, along with Will’s free hand now grabbing roughly at his ass, digging in hard enough to leave bruises, sends Derek over the edge as well.

It’s a couple minutes later that Derek has the presence of mind to grab some tissues off the bedside table and haphazardly clean them up. Will doesn’t seem to care, rolling over until he’s facing the wall and out of Derek’s arms.

Derek hesitates, staring at where Will’s legs have tangled themselves in the sheets, and not knowing how to fit his own in with them, or if he’s even welcome to try.

A pale, freckled hand reaching blindly back for him stops that downward spiral of insecurity in its tracks. Will latches onto Derek's wrist and pulls until Derek’s arm is wrapped securely around his waist, Derek's chest pressed firmly to Will’s back, their legs an even more tangled knot in the sheets, the kind that can’t easily be undone.

“I liked your stories,” Will mumbles into the pillow.

“Coulda fooled me,” Derek smirks, and marvels at the feeling of his mouth moving against the skin of Will’s back in order to create the expression. He blinks his eyes a few times just to feel his eyelashes brush back and forth against the skin at Will’s nape. “Doesn't matter. It’s chill.”

There is quiet for a time, the both of them occasionally readjusting their positions to accommodate for the other. Figuring out how to be close in starts and stops, but getting there quicker than Derek would’ve dared to hope they could.

Just as he’s about to slip into unconsciousness, he hears a belated reply. A whispered admission in the dark, that he prays he isn’t just dreaming up. “You write like it hurts you not to.”

Derek sucks in a sharp breath.

Will laces their fingers together where Derek’s hand rests over his abdomen. “I was afraid that I would make it worse.”

“...It doesn’t always hurt. It doesn’t hurt right now. You make it _better_ , Will.”

Will hums noncommittally. And so Derek holds onto him even tighter. “You are my favorite story,” he whispers, listening as Will’s breathing evens out into sleep. "I could write you forever."

***

Derek wakes when the sun is still only thinking about rising. At that time of day before the world fully wakes up, when it feels like a momentary hush has fallen over the city. He gently extracts himself from Will’s long limbs, pulls on a pair of sweatpants, and sits down on the floor beside the bed with his laptop cradled between his thighs and his stomach.

Two hours later, the story unfolding before him has nothing at all to do with Derek Nurse and William Poindexter. Even if it is bursting at the seams with every emotion Derek is currently failing to moderate. 

“If you’re writing some magical, fictional version of last night, I’m going to punch you in the balls.” Will groans, throwing one arm over his closed eyes and throwing the other one out across the edge of the mattress so that his wrist rests on Derek’s shoulder and his thumb lazily strokes against the stubble on Derek jaw.

“I would never,” Derek vows, mostly meaning it, though his tone is teasing as he lifts himself up and back onto the bed. He sets the laptop to the side, and leans down to place a smacking kiss on Will’s bare shoulder.

Will makes a face. Then yawns and stretches over the side of the bed to grab his pants and pull his cell phone out of them. “I should get going soon.”

“But you’ll come back?”

“I...” Derek’s gut sinks at the hesitation. “I’ll try. I don’t really get a lot of days off work, and I already owe my brother basically three life debts for taking his truck.”

Derek can feel his walls go up before he’s even aware that he needs them. In the space of a single heartbeat he’s got his usual mask firmly in place, just in time to hide the fact that his brain is now very busy remembering that he isn’t actually worth a damn. That he doesn’t get to have this. That letting someone in doesn’t mean they’ll want to stay.

Will looks up from his phone, and his features turn absolutely devastated over whatever it is he sees on Derek’s face. And then, just as quickly, they turn angry. Offended, even. He looks like he does whenever Derek catches a cold and Will stomps into their room with hot tea and a box of Kleenex practically shouting about how Derek needs to take better care of himself.

“Don’t do that,” he says.

“Do what?”

“You know what. Stop. I said I’ll _try_. And _you_ said you’re willing to put in the effort here. So prove it.”

Derek meets the challenging glare in Will’s eyes, and draws in a deep, shuddering breath.

And maybe Derek’s broken. Maybe Will broke him at some point between showing up on his doorstep yesterday and now. Because his walls crumble so quickly it’s like he hasn’t spent a whole lifetime reinforcing them. “Yeah. You’re right. Sorry.”

“Thank you. I _would_ like to occasionally see your stupid face this summer. It’s just hard for me to get away.” Will looks down at his phone again, but he doesn’t actually do anything with it besides tap his thumbs against the screen nervously. “You could maybe come up, though? If you have time. If you want.”

“Wait, really? Your parents won’t mind?”

“Do you not remember the last parents weekend? My parents like you better than me and my brother combined.”

“...And they’ll still like me if I’m sleeping with their son?”

Will tenses minutely. But then shakes it off and puts on his game face. “Only one way to find out.”

Derek shifts so that he can cup Will’s face in both hands, dragging his thumbs back and forth across the freckles on his cheeks. “I love you,” he says.

Will smiles. It’s small, but blinding. He reaches up and kisses Derek, and it takes Derek a second to realize that the kiss is only so hard and fast because he’s smiling through it as well.

“So,” Will rolls them over so that he’s got Derek trapped beneath him. “Which one of us gets the honor of telling Chowder about all this?”

“Oh man, dude’s gonna freak.”

”Hopefully in a good way.”

”I’ll flip you for it.”

“Because coin tosses have worked so well for us in the past.”

“I think they’ve worked _amazingly_ well for us in the past.” Derek grins.

Will shoves him hard enough that he nearly falls off the bed. Derek launches himself back, going for the one spot where he knows Will is ticklish. By the time they’ve called a momentary truce, they’re both winded and laughing, and have nearly broken the bed frame at least twice.

Derek reaches a hand out to brush some wayward red hair off of Will’s forehead, and Will stares back at him with an expression Derek hasn’t seen before. An expression he would happily grow old looking at. “Show me what you were working on before?”

“Yeah okay.”

Derek picks his laptop up and hands it to Will. And then he heads into the kitchen to get a pot of coffee going while Will reads. When he returns with two full, steaming mugs and a package of poptarts dangling from between his teeth, Will is chewing his bottom lip with his eyes still glued to the screen.

“It any good?” Derek asks after he’s spit out the poptarts onto the bed, and Will has taken both coffee mugs out of his hands before he can spill anything.

“It’s... not about us?”

“Nope.”

“I like it though. It’s really... happy.”

“ _I’m_ really happy,” Derek shrugs.

Will blushes and ducks his head. “And it feels sincere, too. Like, I don’t know, like you weren’t holding back? Like you weren’t even thinking about who might read it. None of the other stories felt like that.”

“Is that...” Derek swallows and sits down in front of Will. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yes, you giant dork. It’s a good thing. Hell, I bet you could get published again without even trying.”

Somehow, as proud as he ever was of his first and second publications, and as tentatively hopeful as he ever was in the face of his friends’ enthusiasm over them, just the mere suggestion of Will’s belief that Derek could do it all again has him falling head first into a belief of his own. As though Will being in Derek's corner has prompted Derek to want to be in that corner too.

But Derek doesn’t have the words--not yet, not until he tries to write them all out later--to explain this. So instead he just pulls Will into a fierce hug with a softly satisfied exhale.

“I love you too, you know,” Will says, hugging him back just as tightly. And Derek can feel the words warm against his skin, just as he can feel Will's growing smile, genuine and rare and well worth the effort.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated :) And please feel free to come find me on tumblr/twitter @alocaband <3


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